Kolkata by any other name, would still be Calcutta!

Self plus The Wife had made a trip to the City of Joy, Calcutta (now Kolkata) in 1994. We adored it. The Victoria Memorial, the KC Das Kachoris (established 1866), the Putiram Mishti Doi (1852). Sigh! Nothing brings memories of our visit as evocatively though, as the Calcutta Ambassador Taxis. 

People credit Karl Benz for having made the world’s first ‘automobile’ in 1885. Clearly those who do so don’t know their a. from their e. Because the Ambassador taxis that we had seen in 1993, dated back to the Bronze Age. At least.  And I am not talking about the brand here. I am talking about each individual taxi.

There were no dainty Marutis in Calcutta then. And that was a good thing. Because the potholes of Calcutta would have swallowed them without a burp.

No! I am joking. Sort of. What I am saying though is that Calcutta’s roads needed something sturdier. They needed the Ambassadors.

The Ambassador cars of course ruled Indian roads those days and not just in Calcutta. Liberalisation which had kicked in just a couple of years prior to our Calcutta visit, had not yet thrown up namby pamby foreign cars. Rich Indians had a wide range of two cars to choose from– the Ambassador or the Premier. Choosing between them was like choosing between Lauki or Tinda for fine dining.

The Ambassador was not just a car, it was an institution. It symbolized strength, rugged design and a nice wholesome disrespect for ergonomics. It was durable to the extent that it kept running with the stately pomposity of an MLA invited to inaugurate a water tap, even as a few pieces fell off.  Add a ‘lal batti’ atop the Ambassador and it became, the ultimate symbol of power.

It could seat, five people by design, nine by a little ‘thoda adjust please’ and 11 if it was a Calcutta taxi. The driver sat at a 30 degree angle to the ‘fore-and-aft’, as if perpetually trying to exit bum first. I am not sure about the veracity of these reports, but many old timers swear that this 30 degree angle was not just due to the crush of 11 people in the car. Apparently, the steering wheel had an angular offset to one side by design. The driver therefore needed to sit with his right shoulder forward, his knees pointing to the left side window, but his head aligned with the road. (Try and picture this.)

Each car would come with standard factory settings – A rattle that would increase progressively with age that no one could identify, and an ability to look unruffled after accidents that would reduce the dainty Maruti 800 to a cauliflower.

The gear was positioned under/behind the steering wheel and the handbrake under the dashboard. Starting the car on a slope therefore needed some Baba Ramdev type yogic abilities. The doors closed, not with the muted pleasant thud of today’s cars, but with a robust ‘THUUD’ that would rattle one’s skeleton.

And yet, the Ambassador had dignity. And a Nirupa Roy kind of motherly, accommodative nature. It was always ready to ferry a Safari suited Govt official or a Kabaddi team. Or a buffalo. Occasionally, all together.

Ok, take this contraption, paint it the most psychedelic yellow, and what do you get? An offspring of a hippo and a mango. No! You get a Calcutta taxi.

Our experience of travelling in Calcutta taxis could be summarised as under:-

The seats were a patchwork of towels, rexine and sweat stains imparted by the millions of Bengali bums that had graced them with their amorous contact. Most also had that one broken spring that would lie dormant till you stepped into the taxi. Then, carefully assessing the trajectory of your descending butt, it would reposition itself as required and make uncomfortable contact with the somewhat sensitive portion of your anatomy.

The suspension had lost its mojo by 15 Aug 1947, but continued to hang around out of a sense of duty.

The dashboard has no instruments, merely cavities into which the drivers shoved water bottles, assorted papers, combs and occasionally, Kachoris. One can say that space was used optimally.

The dashboard top had the mandatory fading pictures/plastic figurines of Ma Kali, Buddha and Jesus; the three deities thereby, providing the driver broad interfaith protection.

No self respecting taxi started without that ‘grrrr, thud khut’ sound as the driver wrestled with the stick to shift to Gear 1.

Considering that Calcutta can get very hot and humid and that the taxis had no AC, getting into one during the summers was like getting steamed in a yellow idli maker on four wheels, while being seasoned with several decades of deposited perspiration. One emerged a bit sauteed.

And then there were the Taxi drivers.

The drivers didn’t believe in new-fangled ideas like meters. Their confidence as they quoted any random figure that came to mind was admirable. No one, not even Arnab Goswami could win an argument with them.

‘Kothay jaben?’ they begin solicitously. Only to reject your request by the simple expedient of driving off silently, leaving you looking at the departing car’s posterior a bit nonplussed. (Incidentally, I found this nostalgic; Hyderabadi auto-wallahs being not dissimilar.) It is almost as if one had asked for a drop to Delhi. Via Kottayam.

Most drive with one hand, for the other is used, Zubin Mehta style at an orchestra, for gesticulating angrily at pedestrians, buses, trams.

(I must add here that there was another, more practical and quaintly Calcuttan aspect, to this single handed driving. Those days, if there was a seriously unwell person being rushed to the hospital in the taxi, the driver would lean out of the window and wave a red towel. Amazingly, everyone understood this international code. Traffic parted. Policemen roused themselves from slumber and even cows moved to one side! I swear I am not kidding.)

Taxi drivers were remarkably well informed when discussing politics (shobei chor hai Moshai) or their idol, Saurav Ganguly, who had made his debut two years earlier (and hence well qualified to be made Prime Minister immediately).

And yet you found, that all of them oozed a companionable humanity. You thus carried with you, memories of their somewhat strange but strong opinions on Mohun Bagan Vs Mohammed Sporting FC, politics, and how Shorshe Ilish (Hilsa) should be the national dish.

Now to the present

Thirty two years later, one of those strange quirks of life, viz a visa appointment, found us back in Calcutta, now called Kolkata, in steamy early May 2026. Change, it is said is the only constant in life. Accordingly, we were very pleasantly surprised to find that nothing has changed. KC Das is just the same. Putiram too.

So are the taxis.  Only 32 years older. The drivers are the same too. All close to ninety now though.

Visa work completed, The Wife felt that we needed to see the sights. Wives can be like that. Booked an Uber to take us to the Gariahat from Hastings. The Uber driver, as is normal, cancelled after making us wait for 20 minutes. The Wife sighted a vaguely familiar yellow contraption, one which already being 4000 years old in 1994, we did not expect to see in 2026. Naturally, she went ecstatic.

‘Aaaaaaw’, she said, ‘let’s take a taxi. It would be sooo romantic.’ I, having lost all sense of romance two years into married life, was a bit sceptical, but she was having none of it. ‘Come on’, she gushed.

‘Kothay jaben?’ said the driver and then by use of some complex algorithm factoring mainly whim,  quoted Rs 800. The Wife used her own simpler calculations and quoted Rs 50 startling both the driver and me.  Some healthy give and take later, we settled on Rs 300.

Once inside, the driver educated us, by way of preamble, ‘Shobei chor hai Moshai’ pointing to a police constable with his free hand which was expectedly, hanging out of the window.  ‘If only Saurav Ganguly was the Prime Minister’, he added wistfully.

As the yellow tin can lurched forward after the familiar ‘grrr-thud-khut’,  we were overcome with nostalgia. Kolkata passed by as if on a sepia toned film — old colonial balconies of Indira Gandhi Sarani and Chowringhee Lane held together seemingly by fevicol ka jod, and chaat stalls steaming in the May humidity. The taxi too smelt exactly as we remembered: incense, diesel, and sweat. It felt comforting. Like being embraced by that a somewhat smelly old school friend.

We went on to take another 4-5 taxi rides. Sadly, one of the drivers informed us that the taxis are being phased out by the year 2029.

Our hometown Hyderabad may now boast of a gleaming airport, smooth roads and the glass towers of Gachibowli. Kolkata, meanwhile, seems to move at its own pace. Between Saurav Ganguly and communism, Kolkata has managed to remain, itself. And perhaps that is why, thirty-two years later, stepping into that yellow tin can felt like stepping back into a happier, slower, simpler and kinder version of India.

The Wife says Kolkata ‘has a vibe’. I agree. I love it.